


The Stepbrother Trap

by A_Diamond



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Dean/Cas Big Bang 2019 (Supernatural), Fluff, Inspired by The Parent Trap (1998), Light Angst, M/M, Mentions of Past Child Neglect, Mentions of alcoholism, Mistaken Identity, Summer Camp, identity porn?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 23:23:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 20,152
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21436387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Diamond/pseuds/A_Diamond
Summary: Cas is excited to finally go to camp with his best friend the summer before their senior year, but the activities Balthazar’s been talking up—most of which aren’t necessarily camp sanctioned—are forgotten when they meet a boy who looks exactly like Cas. Twins separated at birth when their parents split up, Cas and Jimmy decide to trade places after camp.They’re hoping to pull it off long enough that each of them can get to know their second parent a little; and once they’re discovered, they’ll make it clear they won’t be kept out of each other’s lives again. For Jimmy, there’s the added bonus of getting to meet his favorite author. For Cas, growing up with only a father who did his best but until recently could charitably be described as a mostly functional alcoholic, going to live with not only his mother but also her wife and stepsons might finally show him what it feels like to be part of a family.An already complicated scenario worsens when Cas develops a crush on Jimmy’s older stepbrother Dean—who seems confused by the small ways ‘Jimmy’ changed at camp, and unsettled when he starts to feel things he never has before.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester, Jody Mills/Mary Winchester, Past John Winchester/Mary Winchester - Relationship, minor Balthazar/Bela Talbot, past Jody Mills/Chuck Shurley
Comments: 57
Kudos: 278
Collections: DCBB 2019





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> It’s here! It’s done. A million thanks to Dreym for [the most adorable art I could ever have imagined](https://dreymart.tumblr.com/post/189070392524/happy-supernatural-thursday-for-the-deancastiel) for this silly little fluff story, and to my long-suffering friend and beta superhoney, and to muse for running this crazy DCBB show with me!

Cas loved his dad. Really, he did. It was just that Chuck was kind of a constant disaster of a human being, unprepared to be a parent at all, much less a single father, and so more often than not it had fallen to Cas to raise himself. Cas cooked most nights, Cas kept the house clean, Cas did his dad’s taxes. They’d at least come to a compromise on Chuck’s drinking, which was that he would stop entirely or Cas would report himself to CPS and they’d see what happened from there. It had been a tough conversation and a tougher time after as Chuck struggled for sobriety, but they’d come out the other side a stronger family for it.

They were a year on from that fight and for the first time he could remember, Cas felt like he could leave his dad alone for a couple of weeks and not come back to a starved, booze-steeped corpse, or possibly a burned shell of a house. With that trust, and with the money saved from all the whiskey Chuck wasn’t buying, Cas had informed his father that he’d be going away to the summer camp his friend Balthazar had been trying to bring him to for the last three years. It was the summer before his senior year, the last chance he had before they aged out of Camp Chitaqua, and Cas was determined not to miss out on what he was assured was a staple of childhood experience.

“You’ll call me if you need anything, right?” his dad asked for the eighteenth time that morning. “If you want to come home early…”

“Dad,” Cas warned fondly.

“Yeah, yeah.” Chuck ducked his head with a wry smile. “If I need anything, I’ll call Mrs. Mosely. You go have fun and be a kid or whatever.”

Cas shouldered his duffel bag but hesitated before turning to board the bus. “You’re going to be okay.” It wasn’t quite a question, but he wasn’t quite confident enough to make it a statement, either. The past year had been hard on them both.

Chuck tugged him into one last hug. “I’m so proud of you,” he whispered fiercely into Cas’s hair. “I know I’m the world’s worst dad—no, it’s okay, I am,” he insisted when Cas tried to protest. “I’ve put you through so much and I’m never going to stop trying to be better. So go, have a great time, don’t worry about me. I can be a responsible adult for a little while.”

“I’m proud of you, too, Dad.”

“Okay, okay.” Sniffling, Chuck gave him a light shove. “Get out of here before your friends see what a loser your dad is.”

“It’s just Balthazar. He already knows.”

Chuck grimaced but tipped his head to acknowledge the truth of that. Balthazar had seen him in all his boxers-and-robe, three-weeks-late-on-a-manuscript binge drinking glory. There had been an unfortunate amount of sobbing. A bit of honest and sober fatherly emotion was really nothing compared to that.

“_Paranoia Strikes Twice_ will be done when you get back,” Chuck promised. He’d made the same promise about Cas’s last day of school, but he still had two months before it was officially due to his editor, so he was actually doing pretty well on his schedule. “It’s just that I’m still not sure about the ending. You remember how I had Max and Alicia going into the underground tunnels after the dragon cult and—”

The bus honked a warning, so Cas gave his dad one last quick hug and joined the rest of the stragglers in shoving his bag haphazardly in the storage compartments underneath the coach and climbing aboard. Balthazar rolled his eyes expressively, but moved his legs to let Cas squeeze past him to the other side of the bench seat he’d been saving.

“You don’t want the window?”

“I’ve seen it all before,” Balthazar said dismissively. “Plus, from here I’ve got a better view of the more important sights.”

Cas hadn’t paid much attention to who else was on the bus when he made his way to Balthazar, but even as he followed Balthazar’s turning gaze, he suspected what he’d find. Sure enough, Bela sat five rows ahead of them with a group of friends clustered around her. She and Balthazar were in an off phase of the on-again, off-again thing they’d had going since freshman year, and every year they came back from camp on the opposite side of that spectrum as they’d started. Since they were broken up, Balthazar was certain they’d get back together over the next few weeks. Privately, Cas didn’t think it would matter much either way. If they started up again, it just meant they would have an explosive parting of ways later in the year when they remembered what they had been fighting about in the first place—they couldn’t agree on a college.

But Balthazar considered himself a man fated for his one true love, and Cas had learned better than to try and dissuade him of that notion, so he let it go and turned back to look out the window as the bus pulled away. His dad was still standing there, waving and wiping his nose like the embarrassing nerd he was. Cas waved back, because he wasn’t really that much better. As excited as he was, he’d miss his dad; they’d never been apart for nearly a month before.

The bus ride was close to four hours, most of which Cas spent either watching the scenery or reading. He’d discovered a new series, six books in all, and had finished the first the night before. The second was starting off a little more shakily than the first, but he hoped it would sort itself out; he had the other four in his bag. He got some conversation out of Balthazar, but most of his questions about what to expect when they got to camp were waved away with a promise it would be more fun for him to wait and see. An hour into the trip, his friend started working his way up the rows to get closer to Bela. Another hour after that, he slumped back into his seat and put his headphones in to sulk to music so loud Cas could could hear the operatic anger spilling out.

Sighing, Cas took a break from reading to look at the landscape passing by, but it was just freeway and distant hills in all directions; even the farms that had surrounded them earlier in the trip had tapered off into nothingness. Back to his book, then.

When the bus passed under the large gate marking the entrance to Camp Chitaqua, Balthazar finally turned off his music and grinned at Cas. “Are you ready for the most amazing summer of your boring nerd life?”

Giving that exactly as skeptical a look as it deserved, Cas said, “I don’t know. Do you think you can overcome your heartbreak enough to show me a good time?”

“Why, Cassie.” Balthazar raised dramatic eyebrows at him, hand going to his heart. “I’m flattered, but no man can sway me from my one true love. The entire lineup of the Dallas Cowboys cheerleading squad at once, yes, but no man.”

Cas continued to stare at him.

“Bela will see the light soon enough. I can woo her and still have time to make sure you get the most out of your virgin camp experience.” Leaning in with a leer, Balthazar added in an undertone, “Maybe even get the most out of your first non-virgin experience, while we’re here. Camp’s a great place to hook up, and you’ve got both rows of cabins to choose from.”

Cas shoved him away as the bus pulled to a stop in a large field. “How are you such a romantic and such a sleaze at the same time? I’m not here for the meat market, thank you very much.”

“You don’t even know what you’re here for,” Balthazar replied airily, then stood and slung his backpack over his shoulder, just barely missing the face of a kid trying to walk up the aisle behind him. “But there other activities if you want to save your virtue for Mr. or Ms. Right. Or even Mr. and Mrs. Right, should the opportunity come along.”

“I’ve reconsidered. My life was better when you weren’t talking. Go back to that.”

He pushed past Balthazar, halfheartedly at best, but Balthazar grinned and let him by anyway. Then Balthazar draped his arm across Cas’s shoulder and more or less escorted him off the bus. It made for an awkward shuffle in the narrow walkway, which wasn’t really designed for a single person older than twelve with a backpack and definitely wasn’t intended to handle two at once, but they survived the trip. Several other buses parked around the field were also disgorging their passengers, and they all milled around collecting their bags from piles next to each open cargo compartment. The groups ranged from what looked to be the bus’s ideal twelve-year-olds to people Balthazar and Cas’s own age—though for the current group, at least, the younger kids held a clear majority.

Despite Balthazar’s cheerful company, the beautiful day around them, and the weeks of new experiences awaiting him, Cas felt a certain melancholy slipping over him and threatening to slide further down into resentment. His summers at that age had been spent either at home while his dad worked on a book or at his elderly neighbor’s house while his dad worked on a book. It wasn’t a terrible childhood, but he did feel like he’d lost out on some things.

Following both his gaze and train of thought, Balthazar nudged him toward one of the many paths leading away through the trees. “Don’t mind the babies. While it’s technically the same camp, we’re on opposite sides of the lake. They’ve got their own activities and dining hall and everything. Trust me, it’s much more fun where we’re going.”

With a grateful smile, Cas readjusted the balance of his backpack and duffel bag and joined the herd of older teenagers tromping into the forest. The excitement of everyone around them helped his mood further; people chatted happily, squealed as they reconnected with old friends, and sang vaguely obscene rhymes loudly and in several different keys. One person running up and down the trail to greet their friends even paused to smack Cas in the shoulder and say, “Good to see you, dude!” before jogging back toward the buses.

Cas looked over his shoulder at their retreating bandana and asked, “Friend of yours?”

“Nope! No idea who that was. But you see? Everyone just wants you to have a good time.”

If that had been the extent of it, Cas would’ve believed him. He put the second and third people to greet him specifically as they passed down to general friendliness and a welcoming spirit, even though Balthazar didn’t get quite the same reception. Maybe they could tell he was new, somehow, and needed the boost. When a girl standing by one of the larger trees looked directly at him and called, “Hey, Jimmy!” he assumed she was talking to one of the dozens of people behind him. But when another boy welcomed Cas back while calling him Jimmy—even he wasn’t that stupidly oblivious.

“Who the hell is Jimmy?” he asked Balthazar, but Balthazar shrugged, looking just as confused as he was.

“I’ve never met a Jimmy here. Which is actually pretty odd, if you think about it, given how common a name it is. Maybe he’s a regular who usually attends a different session? He must look a lot like you for so many people to be mistaking you for him.” Balthazar looked him up and down, then smirked the kind of smirk that told Cas his friend was about to be an asshole. “I sure hope he’s cuter, though. For his sake.”

Cas flipped him off and trudged on in the direction everyone else was going.

After everyone had made it from the buses to another clearing, this one ringed with wooden buildings, it was time to be assigned cabins. It hadn’t even occurred to Cas that he and Balthazar could be separated, and he wasn’t very happy at the prospect. According to what Balthazar had told him—while completely neglecting to mention that they had no control over the arrangements—a lot of activities were scheduled around cabin groups. He wasn’t opposed to new acquaintances, but he’d specifically come to camp to spend time with his friend. Only seeing Balthazar during meals and not having him along for the hike and canoe trips didn’t sound like nearly as much fun.

Fortunately, he didn’t have long to worry about it before they were both pointed at Lassen cabin. Even though it wasn’t going to be a problem, he still thought it was perfectly reasonable to kick Balthazar lightly in the leg and ask, “What was your plan if we didn’t get the same cabin, assbutt?”

“Bribe or threaten people until I got my way. Obviously.”

Balthazar’s reciprocal kick wasn’t any harder than Cas’s had been, but it caught him right in the calf and made him stumble. That, in turn, jostled his bags enough that the duffel slipped off his shoulder and swung down to hit him in the front of the knee, tripping him up still further. Somewhere between him kneeing his bag and landing on top of it, the zipper popped halfway open and spilled out a few pairs of socks and underwear. All in all, not a strong showing for his dignity. Especially since Balthazar, being Balthazar, only offered help in the form of a laugh and a promise that he’d save the bunk below his for Cas—“As long as you don’t take forever to get your crap together. It’s a cutthroat real estate market out there.”

It was embarrassment more than that not-at-all-threatening threat which had Cas working quickly to shove everything back in his bag and get back on his feet. Still, he was stung to reach the cabin and find Balthazar lounging on one of the lofted beds with someone else already set up on the bunk beneath.

“I really didn’t take that long,” Cas told him reproachfully, not bothering to hide his resentment.

“What? Oh. Don’t be a drama queen, Cas.” Balthazar laughed, entirely hypocritical. “I was kidding about the bottom bunk thing. Look.” He reached over to the adjoining bunk, which met his at both their narrow ends, and patted the mattress. “Much easier to whisper fantastic ideas to you in the middle of the night from here, wouldn’t you say?”

Cas had to admit that assessment was correct, though he was less certain he’d agree with any of Balthazar’s midnight bad ideas. Going from past experience, the rate at which they got worse was inversely proportional to how recently Balthazar had gotten any sleep. Also to how good Balthazar thought the ideas were.

They spent a while longer getting settled, hearing about the camp’s safety rules, and meeting the other occupants of the cabin. Then their counselor, Garth, led them to the dining hall.

“We have breakfast and dinner here every day, unless we’re out on an expedition,” Garth explained. “You’re free to sit anywhere you like, but at the end of the meal we all need to meet back under this banner.” He pointed up at a wooden sign, clearly handmade, with _Lassen _carved inside a border of intricately detailed trees. When Cas looked closer, admiring, he even saw the hindquarters of a deer peeking out from behind a trunk in one corner.

“Nobody leaves until everyone is here,” Garth continued. “Each week, two cabins are assigned kitchen cleanup, so on our week we’ll still meet up here, but then we’re gonna stay behind to get everything squared away. For us that’s next week, so we’ll talk more about the details then. Any questions yet? All right, I’m sure you’re all hungry. Go on ahead and find a seat, food will be brought out when everyone’s mostly seated. It’s all just big serving dishes, so take what you want—but not more than you’ll eat, please! Serve yourself and pass it down.”

As the boys scattered, Cas looked to Balthazar, expecting him to take charge in determining a table for both of them. But Balthazar said, “I have to piss. Grab us a couple spots and I’ll find you. Oh, don’t wobble those panicked baby blues at me, you’ll be fine. If anyone tries to take my seat, just give them that other look you do. The one that makes you look murderous instead of pathetic. There you go, that’s it!”

Cas continued to glare for a few moments after Balthazar sauntered off, but he had to get moving before all the tables filled up and he couldn’t find two seats next to each other. He landed at a table not quite in the corner, where they had a good view out two of the large windows as well as being able to see about half of the cafeteria. Not the half with the bathrooms, where Balthazar would be coming from, but he deserved having to look around a little for abandoning Cas like that.

As momentarily satisfying as that spiteful conviction was, he found himself reconsidering it when it seemed like Balthazar was taking a lot longer to find him than expected. Almost everyone was already seated—Cas had had to awkwardly turn a few people away from the empty chair beside him—and the first platters of bread and giant bowls of salad were arriving at the tables, but still no sign of Balthazar. He didn’t even see his friend’s head wandering around the tables looking for him.

Just as he was beginning to worry his plan had backfired entirely and he would be eating dinner alone, he heard someone warn, “No running!” just as Balthazar rounded a column into view. He looked crazed, his eyes wide and wild. There was no way he was that concerned just over finding Cas for dinner, so Cas stood to wave him over. On spotting him, Balthazar walked very quickly and pointedly without running, grabbed his arm, and started forcefully walking back the way he’d come.

“What’s wrong?” Cas asked, but Balthazar didn’t answer. “Balthazar, where are we going?”

Balthazar still didn’t answer. But after he’d pulled Cas past a few more tables, he shoved him at a chair that was empty and pushed back from the table. The plate in front of it had a roll and croutons on it already, which meant Balthazar had been sitting there and serving himself before he suddenly sprang up to find Cas.

Annoyed and still confused, Cas didn’t sit. “What the fuck, Balthazar? If you cared this much about where we were sitting, you should’ve—”

He didn’t get any further than that. The person next to Balthazar’s abandoned plate had looked up at the commotion, and Cas hadn’t paid any attention because he had more important things to deal with. But then that person interrupted his rant with their own, loud, “What the fuck?” and Cas remembered himself enough to pause and apologize before getting back to telling off Balthazar.

He didn’t get around to the apology, either. Because when he turned to offer it, he found himself staring at his own face gaping back up at him.


	2. Chapter 2

Though he’d been hungry going in, Cas barely ate dinner. Balthazar, having scared off half the table to ensure them some privacy, happily stuffed his face with more chili dogs than any person ought to have been able to put away. Even more remarkably, or at least it would have been had Cas not known him for so long, he managed to do so without making even the slightest mess of himself or his plate. All the while, he kept his attention on Cas and the other boy, sitting across from them, who also wasn’t eating.

“This can’t be happening,” the guy said. He’d made three other comments along the same theme, but Cas hadn’t said anything at all yet, so the surprise doppelganger was ahead of him there.

While Cas didn’t share in the denial, since it was clearly happening, he agreed with the sentiment behind it. Looking across the table felt like looking into a cursed mirror from his dad’s third novel. Not Chuck’s finest in terms of plot, but very successful in its descriptions of the visceral horror victims felt as their reflections started to move independently. The reflections eventually broke free from the mirrors and brutally murdered their creators in order to take over their lives, then spent years building the same curse into new mirrors by staring into them every day.

Cas was reasonably sure he wouldn’t be sharing that fate, but it unsettled him nonetheless.

“I’ll be honest,” the other boy said, looking at Balthazar, “when you got really excited about how I looked just like your friend, I kinda just assumed you were a melodramatic nutcase.”

“Hey,” Balthazar protested.

“Oh, don’t worry. He is a melodramatic nutcase.”

“Hey!”

“Fair. I’m Jimmy.”

“Yeah, that makes sense. A few people have called me Jimmy already today. I’m Cas.”

“I know.” At Cas’s surprised look, Jimmy waved at Balthazar and explained, “Before the ranting and raving, he just dropped down next to me and started talking like I was you.”

Their clothes were nothing alike, which was something Balthazar was usually more attuned to; under the circumstances, Cas couldn’t hold it against him.

Balthazar had just taken a bite that contained at least half a chili dog, but he gulped it down in a single swallow that could’ve made a python jealous in order to say, “Gentlemen, I didn’t bring you together for the small talk. We have a limited amount of time to focus on the elephant in the room here. Or should I say elephants, plural. The two long-lost, identical twin elephants.”

Cas rolled his eyes and said, “You’re not funny,” but Jimmy’s quiet huff of laughter detracted from his point. “But, much as it pains me to admit it, he is right—about focusing, I mean. Long-lost identical twins is…”

Unable to end that sentence in a way that captured even a small part of how he felt about that possibility, he made a face and shrugged. Instead of trying, he asked Jimmy, “What do you think?”

“July tenth.”

It might’ve seemed like a non sequitur, but Cas understood immediately. July tenth was his birthday, and though Jimmy hadn’t said it, he knew it had to be Jimmy’s birthday, too. The coincidences kept piling up, too many to be coincidental. Like how Jimmy knew his mom but not his dad, who his mom had never been married to.; just like Cas knew his dad but not his mom, who his dad had never been married to.

“Do you know anything about her?” Jimmy asked, his voice hushed despite their relative solitude. “Your mom?”

“Just that they separated when I was a few months old and decided it would be best for her not to be part of my life.”

“What’s her name?”

“I don’t actually know. My dad doesn’t like to talk about her. My dad’s name,” he started, then cut himself off abruptly. If he said it, Jimmy could just agree and that wouldn’t prove anything.

Leaning even closer, like above everything else it was the one big secret he was worried about, Jimmy said, “All I know about my dad is that his name is Chuck and he’s a writer.”

Cas closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands. It was too much to take in. His dad had his fair share of eccentricities, maybe even more than his share, but Cas would never have believed him capable of such an earth-shattering deception. Not telling him about his mom was one thing—and from the way Chuck’s face crumpled and he had, in the past, turned to drinking whenever it came up, Cas had assumed his dad was just still heartbroken over the failed relationship. He’d thought that was why his mom couldn’t be around, or that she just hated the thought of being a mother and Chuck had protected him from her resentment by keeping Cas away from her.

He didn’t know what to think anymore, because she’d clearly been willing to be a mother to the identical twin brother Cas’s dad had kept secret from him for over sixteen years.

“What’s her name?” His voice was shakier than he wanted it to be, but given the circumstances he thought he could be forgiven how much anger pounded in his veins. Balthazar’s hand closing around his wrist to give a supportive squeeze said he thought so, too. “Your—my—our mom. What’s her name?”

“Jody. She’s—”

But Cas didn’t get to find out what she was, not then.

“Everything okay here, boys?” a counselor who wasn’t Garth asked, too jovial to really be sincere but trying very hard. “Things seem a little tense over here. Your brother looks kind of upset there, champ. What’s the matter?” His hand landed heavily on Cas’s shoulder, but he was talking to Jimmy.

He was asking Jimmy about his brother—which was Cas.

Of course the counselor had no idea what had just transpired, and Cas suddenly realized he didn’t want him to. He didn’t want him to know that Cas had never been called anyone’s brother before, and he definitely didn’t want him to know that their parents had decided sixteen years ago that Cas and Jimmy should never meet.

Mustering up a small smile, he looked up at the counselor. “Jimmy and I are in different cabins,” he said, which was both true and not at all what was the matter. “I know we’re going to have fun and make new friends, it’s just a little weird.”

“That’s a very mature perspective,” the counselor said, like he thought Cas was six instead of sixteen. “And you’ll still see each other a lot, like you are now at dinner!”

“Right. Thank you.”

As the counselor wandered off, looking pleased with himself for a job well done, Cas found Jimmy looking at him with a confused frown.

“If they find out we’re meeting for the first time,” Cas explained in what he hoped wasn’t too impatient of a tone, “they’re going to call our parents for what to do about it. Then they’ll just split us up and we’ll never see each other again.”

“Right.” Jimmy looked around, presumably checking for other well-meaning but interfering adults.

Cas did, too, and noted that most campers seemed to be finishing their meals. The same people who had brought out the serving dishes were coming around to collect them, so they waited quietly for theirs to be picked up with a promise of dessert on the way. He didn’t think he’d want that any more than he wanted dinner, but it was good news anyway; it would give them a bit more time, especially if they stopped acting so suspiciously that they raised concerns.

Still, he wanted even more time than that with his newly discovered twin. There had been an amount of truth in his complaint to the counselor—he didn’t like that he and Jimmy were in separate cabins. It was going to make talking much harder, and they had so much to talk about.

As though following the same train of thought, as soon as they were clear to talk again, Jimmy said, “We need to meet up without having to wait for the next meal and hope we’ll be able to have privacy. Do you know how to get to the hollow tree?”

Shaking his head, Cas looked to Balthazar, who sighed and grimaced but nodded. “It’s not exactly why I was hoping to show you how to sneak out of the cabin after curfew, but I suppose it’s still for a good cause. You’re on your own to get back, though. I have a date with Bela.”

“I thought she turned you down on the bus?”

“Well, sure. She always turns me down on the bus. It’s only if she doesn’t meet me in the canoe shed the first or second night that I know she means it.”

“Sneaking around at night is that easy?”

“Time-honored tradition on this side of the lake,” Balthazar declared. “No one’s ever died or gotten pregnant, so I don’t think they really care what we get up to.”

Cas turned a raised eyebrow to Jimmy, who nodded a confirmation. “Not sure we’d have heard about the pregnancies, but otherwise I agree with that assessment. This is your first time at Chitaqua? I guess it would have to be. I’ve been coming here since I was eight and the counselors are here all summer. Someone would’ve mentioned seeing you before now.”

That was a good point, but also raised a new concern: “Is there anyone who’s been here with you before who would know it’s weird for you to suddenly have an identical twin?”

“No,” Jimmy decided after a moment of consideration while a platter of chocolate cake slices were delivered to their end of the table. “I mean, my counselor from last year is here, but he didn’t really pay enough attention to any of us to know. And my friends from camp are all in different sessions this year. I don’t usually come this early because my birthday is—well. You know.”

Their shared birthday, two days after they would get home from camp. Of course he knew. “Why early this year?”

“My stepmom has a big event out of town this week and next week, so we figured this way the whole family gets the most time together. Since we’re gone the same time.”

“Stepmom,” Cas repeated, shell-shocked despite having thought he had no more capacity to be struck by any new revelation. He recognized the way Jimmy tensed, bracing for a fight to defend his mom’s honor, but it wasn’t going to come; his reaction had nothing to do with that. “Mom got married?”

“Yeah.” It took a few seconds for Jimmy to relax, like he was still waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he did. “Did Dad?”

Still reeling, Cas shook his head. It shouldn’t have been such a surprise, looking at it rationally. Plenty of people got married all the time, even after leaving serious relationships, even when they were single parents. It had been sixteen years, after all. Probably it was more likely that she would have been married in that time than not. But Chuck never had. Cas had never had a mother, and Jimmy had two.

“What’s she like?” he asked when he felt like he could trust his voice again. “Your stepmom?”

When Jimmy smiled, Cas could feel it. He knew that smile, knew specifically all the emotions that went into making it look like that instead of any of his other smiles, and he was simultaneously happy for Jimmy and sorry for himself for it. “She’s amazing, she really is. And she makes Mom so happy—I was ten when they met, I remember noticing how much more she smiled. And she’s never treated me like anything less than her own sons.”

“Her sons.” He felt like an idiot, just repeating half of what Jimmy said, but it bought him time to process how else to react. “You have stepbrothers?”

Impossibly, Jimmy’s smile widened further. “Yeah, and they’re great too.”

There were two of them, one older and one younger. Jimmy launched into talking about them with a fond exuberance that Cas wanted to share, but he found himself spacing out on the stories of their lives and Jimmy’s experiences with them. Of course he would have liked to be curious, and was sure that later on he’d come to regret his inattentiveness, but he couldn’t manage to focus on those sorts of specifics. Not when the overview was so much more than he could bear at the moment.

All those years he’d been alone, even when his dad was there, wishing he had a real family, and Jimmy had been out there with brothers.

Because Balthazar was a true friend, he noticed Cas’s distraction and stepped in to carry the conversation, asking the questions Cas couldn’t and hopefully remembering the answers to pass along later. Cas didn’t really tune back in until dinner was ending, when Balthazar had to prod him to move his arm so they could stack their plates together. Balthazar didn’t even complain as he carried all three sets of dishes to the bus tub that had been brought out to the other end of the table.

Cas watched him for a few steps, then turned back to find Jimmy looking at him with understanding.

“Sorry,” Cas told him anyway. “It’s just…”

“Yeah, I know. It’s crazy. I really gotta meet back up with my cabin for cleanup, but I’ll see you in a few hours?”

“As long as Balthazar’s not lying about getting us out there.”

“Your skepticism wounds me,” Balthazar declared with a huff as he returned, “but I will prove myself the better man and lead you to freedom nevertheless.”

Jimmy and Cas made faces at each other, which he was delighted to learn was much more satisfying than making a face at Balthazar all by himself, and then they went their separate ways.

When the Lassen group got back to the cabin, Garth had everyone sit in a circle on the floor, oblivious to the grumbling of at least half the group. Cas didn’t participate in the protest, though he wasn’t especially excited to participate in the bonding activity, either. They’d already done introductions and Cas hadn’t even found those very useful. Forced socialization never brought out the best in him, and doing it when he was starting out in a distracted bad mood promised terrible results. But it was clearly happening whether he—or anyone else—wanted it to or not, so he didn’t see the point in wasting the effort to try and stop it.

“We didn’t have time for this before dinner,” Garth said with the pep that appeared to be his standard, “but before we settle in to sleep tight, we’re gonna get to know each other a bit more! So as we go around, I want you to say your name again and tell us your favorite animal. I’ll start: I’m Garth and my favorite animal is a giant polar bear. Does anyone want to guess why?”

To the surprise of no one—possibly including Garth, though it was hard to judge over his unwavering cheer—no one took the bait. Undaunted, he explained, “It’s a great ice breaker!” and giggled at his own joke. He was the only one. Participation didn’t pick up from there, despite Garth’s best efforts, so Cas wasn’t forced out of what Balthazar later, very unfairly, classified as his sulk.

It wasn’t sulking to be upset at the discovery of a brother, a twin he hadn’t known about for his entire life. To feel betrayed that he’d been denied the big, happy family Jimmy had, that he’d had to struggle with his own dysfunctional single dad for so long. Not that he would’ve wanted to leave Chuck, but he couldn’t stop dwelling on all the ways things might’ve gone differently—gone better, for both of them.

Those thoughts carried him through getting changed for bed and brushing his teeth, climbing up onto his bunk to prepare for ‘lights out’---something of a misnomer, since the cabin didn’t have any electric lights to turn out. He was in no danger of falling asleep while he waited for Balthazar’s signal, far too worked up about everything.

Eventually a light snoring filled the cabin. Something about the way it squeaked cartoonishly at the end made him think it was Garth; Balthazar agreed, which he demonstrated by flailing insistently from his own bunk until his hand caught Cas in the face. Cas grabbed a few of the offending fingers and squeezed a little harder than was necessary to prove he got the message.

The moon was out when they slipped through the doorless cabin entrance, bright enough that they didn’t need the flashlight Cas had shoved into his jacket pocket. They reached the hollow tree before the woods turned denser, and Jimmy was already inside with his own light.

Though impressively spacious, the cavern within the stump couldn’t fit all three of them. Balthazar dismissed that concern with a scoff.

“I’ve got better places to be. I’ll be back in a couple hours to make sure you don’t fall into the lake on your way back.”

“Tell Bela’s window I said she’s better off without you!” Cas replied. To Jimmy he offered an awkward-feeling wave and said, “Hello.”

“Hey! So, I’ve been thinking a lot. I told you a bunch about my side at dinner, but I didn’t really give you a chance to talk. What’s Dad like? What’s his last name—will I know anything he’s written? I always wonder when I see Chucks.”

“Um.” Cas had been thinking a lot, too, but the questions he’d come up with had been a lot more existential. And, he realized, a lot more selfish. He’d been so wrapped up in how much it affected him, but of course it was just as big a deal for Jimmy to learn about his father.

“Our last name is Shurley, but he writes under a pseudonym. Carver Edlund. He—”

“No way!” Jimmy clapped a hand over his mouth, chagrined at his overly loud excitement, but as soon as he’d gotten under control he leaned closer and said, “Seriously, though? Carver Edlund is my absolute favorite author. I have all his books! Well, not the new one, _The Angel_—”

“—_Meets Death_, yeah. And yeah, seriously.”

“That’s so crazy.”

“Yeah, but what about this isn’t?”

“True. Okay, tell me more about him.”

So Cas did, and Jimmy asked questions and shared more about his own life, which led to more questions and stories from Cas. They were still in the thick of it when Balthazar returned to drag Cas back to their cabin.

“We can talk more at breakfast?” Cas suggested.

For once, Balthazar didn’t seem to take much joy in dashing his hopes. “Man, you really have been checked out all evening, haven’t you? The cabin’s going canoeing tomorrow, we’re leaving early and having a ‘camp breakfast’ at the lake before we head out. I wouldn’t count on us being back for dinner, either.”

“Here, then, tomorrow night. If you’re not too tired.”

Tired or not, Cas was going to be there.

He remained firm in that assertion even when he woke up already tired the next morning to Garth’s obnoxiously chipper reveille as played on a kazoo. Having to wait a full day before seeing Jimmy again grated on his nerves and left him open to sliding back into his morose thoughts about all the recent revelations.

“I know you’re going through an emotional upheaval worthy of Byron, but can you go through it while also paddling?”

Cas’s glare was lost on Balthazar’s back, but he kept it up on principle. He also kept paddling, as he’d been doing since they left the dock. They’d been drifting to the left the whole time, which meant he was paddling more than Balthazar, not less, but that fact was also apparently lost on his friend. After a few more minutes of paddling, glaring, and switching sides to compensate for Balthazar’s laziness, he made the decision to stop brooding and enjoy the scenery.

The lake they were on sparkled in the early morning sun, not too hot yet, and the thick trees lining the shore added to the sense of tranquility. Less calming were the shouted conversations of the other campers in canoes all around them, though at least they’d all resolutely ignored Garth‘s attempts to get another inane camp song going to shatter the peace even further. 

If the highlight of his camp experience hadn’t already been claimed by meeting his secret twin brother, he thought it might have been that view and the feeling of contentment it washed over him. He needed to get outside—really outside—more often, he decided. And to drag Chuck out with him. Even looking back at where he knew the camp was, shrouded by trees beyond the barely visible dock, the prospect of returning to deal with the emotional consequences of his newly discovered family didn’t weigh on him so heavily.

“Pebble for your thoughts?”

Something small bounced off his back, probably the aforementioned pebble, and Cas idly waved his middle finger at the other end of the canoe. When he faced forward again, he found Balthazar completely turned around on his bench, not even pretending to paddle anymore, smirking at him.

“Just… Life. You know. Thinking about everything with Jimmy.”

“Boring. So, would you like to hear my thoughts about everything with Jimmy?”

“You’re going to tell me whether I say yes or no, so you might as well get on with it.” Cas took up his paddle again to catch them up to the group.

Balthazar, naturally, made no move to help out. “You know me so well, it’s touching. I think you should trade places.”

Cas nearly lost his paddle to the lake. “What?”

“You and Jimmy. Trade places after camp. He’ll come back with me, you go off to wherever he’s from—”

“A winery in California.”

“—and just pretend to be each other for a while. You get to know your mom, he gets to know your dad, it’ll be a party. And you can come clean before the end of the summer, of course. Get traded back amid some drama, I’m sure, but no matter what happens after that, you’ll have spent some time with your parents before the shit hit the fan.”

“That’s… Honestly, Balthazar, that’s probably the stupidest thing I’ve heard in my entire life. So why do I want to do it so badly?”


	3. Chapter 3

Riding back on the bus without Balthazar did nothing to help Cas’s nerves, especially since he wasn’t actually riding ‘back’. He was going the opposite direction, away from his home and toward Jimmy’s home. Jimmy’s family. He wished he could talk to Balthazar, wished even more that he could talk to Jimmy, but he and Jimmy had both left their phones at home since the camp didn’t allow them. He’d have to wait until he got to Jimmy’s house and Jimmy got to his house, then use Jimmy’s phone to text his own. Balthazar had promised to set up a group chat for the three of them to be ready for the other two, since he was the only one who had his phone hidden away in his luggage.

“In case of emergency,” he’d claimed, but they all knew it was because Bela wouldn’t be caught dead without her phone.

The only book Jimmy had brought was _Attack from Below_, a Carver Edlund novel from two years ago that Cas had read about twelve times—including eight different endings in nine different drafts, to the point where he couldn’t actually remember which one had made it to the final publishing. His dad always had the hardest time with the endings, even though he went into each new book swearing that he knew exactly how it was going to conclude. Cas had learned it was easier not to point that out to him.

At least reading it was comfortingly familiar, and helped ease his anxiety for a couple of hours in the middle of the trip. After that he was on his own, staring out the window at the unfamiliar landscape, waiting for the biggest moment of his life, and worrying.

Because he was seated near the back of the bus, he was one of the last people off when they pulled to a stop in a church parking lot very similar to the one he’d been picked up from. He used the time to scan the crowd of gathered families, looking for anyone matching Jimmy’s descriptions. They hadn’t been sure who all was coming to collect him, so Jimmy had tried to prepare him to recognize all the possibilities. It was yet another thing that would’ve been easier if they’d had access to their phones, or any internet at all.

Since they hadn’t, Cas was looking out for anyone who looked like the general descriptions Jimmy had given him of two women and two boys. It only took him a minute to find Jody—to find his mom, standing outside her car a few rows back from the main throng. Jimmy’s description helped, but the marked Sheriff’s car was what really made her stand out. As soon as she saw Cas looking her way, picking out the moment with precision despite the distance, she smiled and raised her hand in a casual wave that confirmed her identity for Cas. 

All at once, he couldn’t get off the bus fast enough. The aisle was clearing but not empty, so he was stuck behind a group of kids who were reluctant to part with their new friends. There were hugs and exchangings of phone numbers, all things that could’ve been handled during the hours of their trip or once they made it to the parking lot a few yards away. But despite his impatience, Cas wasn’t going to be the asshole who pointed those things out. Finally, he got off the bus, picked up his bag—Jimmy’s bag—from the few that were left, and turned to where his mom was parked.

He didn’t run over, even though he wanted to, because that seemed excessive. But when she wrapped an arm around him, he hugged back as hard as he could, even though his bag and backpack made it very inconvenient to do so. She seemed a bit taken aback, but laughed gently and hugged him back, just as hard, even though his bag and backpack made it even more inconvenient for her.

“Missed me that much, huh?”

“You have no idea,” he answered.

When he went to put his bags in the back of the car, his mom stopped him from opening the door further than a few inches and gave him a strange look. “You might be running on camp standards of hygiene, but nothing that goes on those seats is coming into my house. Come on, I’ll get the trunk.”

He tried to think of an excuse, but they all sounded contrived even in his head. Anyway, she’d already provided him with one, and Balthazar, experienced liar that he was, had warned him about getting too elaborate. “If it’s not something you need to say,” he’d said, hands melodramatically wobbling Cas’s head by the cheeks, “then don’t fucking say it. Right?”

So Cas said nothing, just smiled sheepishly, closed the door, and followed her around to the trunk. She had to shove aside a ballistic shield to make room for his stuff, but they got it to fit. And he understood why that was preferable to the back seat, when he got in the front and saw the metal bars that had been hidden by the tint of the windows. It seemed Balthazar’s advice had worked out, because Jody didn’t say anything more about it as she started the car and joined the line of people exiting the parking lot.

“Did you have a good time at camp?”

“Yes.”

He realized almost as soon as he’d said it that, while that would’ve sufficed with Chuck, it probably wasn’t up to the standard of what Jody expected from Jimmy. When she cast him another skeptical look, briefer since she was driving, he put on a thoughtful frown as though it had been an intentional pause, not the end of his answer. It bought him time to come up with more to say that sounded good.

Thinking of Jimmy’s reflection on his time at camp, he said, “It’s a little sad, since I won’t be going back. But I think I made the most of it. Maybe that’s why it’s so nice to be here with you, too. It feels like it’s been forever.”

The emotions roiling in his chest, already nearly unbearable, exploded as Jody reached out her hand for him to hold; he did, having to make a conscious effort not to seem overly eager for it.

“We’re glad to have you back, too. Mary and Dean are making a big dinner to celebrate all of us being home again. I’m not sure what’s being served. They came in from the fields early and kicked me out about three hours ago to get started, so it’s going to be one of those nights.”

From the way she stressed it, clearly it was something that was supposed to have a deeper meaning that Jimmy would’ve known. Cas didn’t. He let his unease out as a short laugh and said, hoping it wasn’t an abnormal response, “Yeah, sounds like it.”

Jody took it in stride and Cas relaxed a fraction. Only a fraction. He’d spent two weeks learning how to be Jimmy, and he’d felt pretty confident when Balthazar hadn’t been able to tell they’d switched on him. As well as Balthazar knew him, though, and as sure as he felt that Chuck would be distracted enough with his book not to know Jimmy wasn’t who he was supposed to be, Jody’s scrutiny was on another level entirely. He should’ve predicted that, with her job, but he’d been so excited and carried away with the plan that he hadn’t stopped to think about it that hard.

“What about Sam?” he asked. In part it was to fill the lull after the last exchange, because even if it was comfortable, he wanted to be distracted from that line of thinking. The rest of it was genuine interest, wanting to know more about the family he was sneaking himself into.

“He’s been at Kevin‘s all day, but he should get dropped off before we get home.” Glancing at the car clock, she smiled. “In fact, he’s probably already trying to steal samples and ducking Dean’s projectile spoons.”

That was possibly more information than he knew how to handle. On top of his other concerns, he was starting to worry that Jimmy hadn’t provided a full enough picture of his family to prepare Cas to meet them.

He became firmly convinced of that when they made it down to the sprawling house at the end of the long, branching driveway and the most attractive living person he’d ever seen stood in the open door, waiting for them. That had to be Dean: He looked too mature to be fourteen-year-old Sam, and he wore an apron that had a smiley face drawn in what looked like flour on his chest, and he had a small splatter of red sauce just below his temple. He also mostly matched Jimmy’s description of Dean, except that Jimmy’s description hadn’t accurately conveyed how stunningly beautiful he was.

An irresponsible omission, in Cas’s opinion. If he’d known to brace for it, maybe Jody wouldn’t have caught him staring for so long that she asked, “Is everything okay, Jimmy?”

At least he didn’t make things worse by not reacting to that name, but he still turned to find her giving him another searching look, lines of concern creasing around her eyes. She cared so much about him—about Jimmy. His dad cared, of course, and he tried his best to show it. At his best, Chuck might’ve even asked the same question. But if Cas answered that everything was fine, Chuck would take him at his word. He didn’t think Jody would.

“It’s just good to be home.”

Sure enough, she didn’t let him off the hook so easily. “You sure that’s it? Nothing that happened while you were gone?”

“No!” he said, maybe too quickly. “No. It’s just… Have you ever had a moment where you realize how many good things in your life you’ve been taking for granted?”

As soon as the words left his mouth, he wanted to take them back. He’d been trying to come up with something that made sense for Jimmy without being a complete lie, but hearing himself say it out loud, it was too much. Too honest, but also insincere, because at the moment he said it, he wasn’t really thinking about the things he’d taken for granted. He was thinking about the things Jimmy had. It wasn’t fair to either of them to hold onto that resentment. Their lives were different, but now they were both getting a chance to see the other side of things. By the end of the summer, after they told their parents the truth, it would all change in ways he couldn’t predict anyway.

Despite his misgivings, Jody’s frown softened. Her entire face softened, her lips turning into a slight smile and her eyes getting just a little bit shinier. “Yeah. I know what you mean. We’ve got it pretty damn good. Sometimes I don’t know how I got so lucky with all you boys.” She cleared her throat and gave him a wry, lopsided smile before undoing her seatbelt. “Come on, Dean’s never gonna forgive us if we let his hard work go cold because we’re being sappy.”

“Can’t have that,” Cas agreed.

He started going for his bags, but Jody shooed him away. “I’ve got it. Go say hi to everyone.”

Thus unencumbered, Cas had no excuse to avoid the hug Dean offered by way of an outstretched arm as he approached.

Not that he entirely wanted to. He’d loved being hugged by Jody, with a bone-deep, nearly inexpressible joy. More than that, he’d felt safe. Complete. He wanted to hug her more, every chance he got. He wanted to see if Mary’s hugs felt the same way, if she was also inclined to hug him. He’d been curious about Jimmy’s stepbrothers, too, and if he’d enjoy their affection as much as he had Jody’s, even knowing none of it was really meant for him. But faced with one of them in person, guilt and worry started to seep in. It was bad enough lying to Jody so he could be treated like the son she thought he was instead of the son she’d left behind; at least he really was still her son. Mary, Dean, and Sam, though—he was nothing to them. A total stranger with no relationship to justify making them treat him like family.

His momentary hesitation worked in his favor: Dean slung an arm around his shoulders, so Cas going for an embrace would have been awkward and potentially suspicious in addition to making him feel creepy.

“Welcome home, Jimmy. The good news is, I made you lasagna. The bad news is, Sammy managed to dump about three cups of vegetable peels into the sauce when I looked away for five goddamn seconds and it was too late to make more.” Using his brotherly arm for leverage, he turned them both around and guided Cas into the bright home.

“It doesn’t taste like ass because I’m amazing, but I’m gonna need your help shaving his eyebrows the day before school starts.”

“I heard that,” said Jody, coming up behind them.

“I also convinced Mom to pick up a full tray of tiramisu from Bellissibro.”

“I heard nothing. Jimmy, your stuff’s on the stairs. Make sure it gets to your room before I get up, because if I break my neck tripping over it my ghost will shave your eyebrows every night. Actually, let’s call it every third night. Just enough for it to start growing out and getting itchy before I do it again.”

Cas had only met half of Jimmy’s family and he was already overwhelmed by them. By the immediate force of their personalities, the ease with which they engaged each other, the slightly alarming inside jokes he was getting drawn into moments after meeting them. Of course they didn’t know that, but something about how casually it all played between the two of them made him think he would have had much the same experience coming in as a first-time guest.

That was overwhelming in its own way, because the Shurley residence didn’t play host to many guests—Balthazar would hang out with Cas, Chuck’s publishing agent would beat down his door twice a year, and no one else ever really had cause to come see them. Neither Cas nor his dad were in the habit of opening the door to unexpected visitors, especially after the incident that started with Chuck’s former publisher giving his real name and address to a pair of “very sweet and devoted” fans and ended in restraining orders.

Campbell Cellars was open year-round for tastings and tours. While the family house itself wasn’t included in that, they did have a set of cottages that could be rented out for events, and Jimmy had told him about Mary hosting employee dinners every few months.

For the first time since he got into the car with their mom, he wondered how Jimmy was doing in his place. What he thought of their dad and how much of an awkward recluse he was. What he thought of Cas’s life and how it compared to his own.

And he missed Jimmy, with a sudden ferocity that caught his breath in his chest. Twenty-one days before he hadn’t even known he had a twin, but they’d spent as many waking moments as they could together since that discovery and for all it had been new and strange and even upsetting, it had also been natural. A new normal that had come upon him so quickly and completely he hadn’t noticed until he realized, too late, that it was another thing he’d taken for granted.

Whatever happened with Jody when she found out the truth, whether or not she and her wife ever considered him part of their family as himself, he would always have Jimmy.

Unfortunately, he didn’t see any way to plausibly excuse himself long enough to find Jimmy’s room without help, locate the bookshelf that held Jimmy’s phone, and text his own number with the many things he wanted to say. It would all have to wait at least until after dinner.

Fortunately, he was distracted before that mood could sink too much deeper into his heart, on the very next step he took at Dean’s tactile direction. A boy who could only have been Sam raced out to meet them, intercepting their path from a doorway off to the side ahead of them. His grin was almost as wide as his arms as he threw himself at Cas.

“I’m so glad you’re back,” he declared, looking up at Cas earnestly. Even when Dean put a hand on the side of Sam’s head and started trying to shove him off Cas—pretended to try; Cas didn’t feel enough of a shift in his body for there to be any force behind it, and with Dean’s other arm still around it he would’ve felt it—Sam didn’t let go. “Dean’s been rearranging my books whenever I leave the house and trying to convince me it’s a poltergeist. I need your help making him suffer.”

Dean warned, “Don’t push your luck, Sammy,” but despite his words he gave up on pushing Sam away. “You’re already in for a world of hurt for fucking up my lasagna.”

“I improved your shitty lasagna for you!”

“Language, Sam,” Jody chastised.

That injustice inspired Sam to let go of Cas and whirl around to gape at Jody. “What about what Dean said? That was way worse!”

“Dean is legally an adult. You are fourteen years old and don’t work for a living. Them’s the breaks.”

Sam pouted, Dean let go of Cas to try and catch him in a headlock, and they stumbled off down the hall together in a tangle of limbs. Cas and Jody gave them a long lead before following.

Dean’s lasagna was great, vegetables and all. The whole family was great, even if being there with all of them was so overwhelming that Cas only came away with vague impressions of all of them being smart and nice and loving each other. He wouldn’t have been able to produce any solid examples of anything that had happened at the table after the second he stood up from it at the end of dinner.

Of course, part of that might’ve been the panic wiping clean all other thoughts when Jody said, “Headed up to bed?” and he realized he had no idea where Jimmy’s room was or how to explain that sudden and specific amnesia in front of Jimmy’s entire family. Fortunately, Dean offered to help him carry his bags, so Cas just made sure to stay behind him on the stairs.

Unfortunately, staying behind Dean all the way up the stairs didn’t do anything to quash Cas’s opinion on Dean’s physical attraction.

After setting the bag down in what Cas was pretty confident was Jimmy’s room, Dean lingered, looking Cas over in a way that made him nervous in multiple ways all at once. He knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, that the interest Dean showed in him was purely fraternal. Though Cas was acutely aware of Dean’s attractiveness, Dean was looking at Jimmy, his stepbrother. Checking him over, not checking him out.

“You might be the only person in the history of the world who goes to camp for two weeks and comes back paler,” Dean decided, grinning. “Though I guess that’s just because Sammy’s already so pasty, who would even know the difference. How’d I end up in a family full of nerds?”

“Are you calling my mom a nerd?”

“Jody’s awesome. And badass. And kinda scary. And also a total nerd, yes. But nerds are hot now, so don’t worry.”

He ruffled Cas’s hair, just like an affectionately annoying older brother should’ve done at that moment. Cas’s insides squished in on themselves, exactly the opposite of how an annoyed but affectionate younger brother should’ve reacted to that casual touch. Before he could give himself away too terribly, he took a step further into the room and said, “Goodnight, Dean.”

As soon as he’d closed the door on Dean, Cas started searching through the bookshelf to find Jimmy’s phone. There was a new text chain with two numbers that the phone didn’t recognize but he did; it had 208 unread messages. He started scrolling back up through them, but after three full screens of Balthazar predicting his demise, he decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.

He texted back: **Not dead, just having dinner. How is everything there?** then saved the numbers to the phone under **J** and **B**. He wasn’t planning to let anyone else get a look at the phone, because the conversation would definitely be incriminating, but if anyone saw the notifications he didn’t want to have to deal with explaining why he was texting someone named Jimmy when he was supposed to be Jimmy. Sure, it was a common name, but it was the kind of coincidence someone would mention to their family. If Balthazar were there, he would’ve appreciated that the phone titled their chat **B,J**. Since he wasn’t, Cas just rolled his eyes and looked around the rest of the room while he waited for a response.

It was definitely larger than his, and the furniture was nicer, but what really stood out to him was how much cleaner it was. His own room back home wasn’t a disaster, by any means; his messes had never even come close to matching what his dad did to the living room when he was on a writing bender. Jimmy clearly had higher standards, or maybe it was Jody and Mary. Regardless, it was another thing he needed to be aware of while playing his role as Jimmy.

Trying not to make too much suspicious noise with it or dig deeply enough that he’d find things both he and his brother would regret, he checked through the closet, dresser, and desk drawers. He’d be able to dress himself the next morning, at least, and he also found some soft blue pajamas in the top drawer to change into for the night. It seemed odd neither Balthazar nor Jimmy had responded to him yet, given the volume of their texts before, so he went to the bed to check the phone—then stopped, turned back, and picked up his discarded clothes.

When he returned to the phone, he rolled his eyes to see a new string of messages. It seemed Jimmy was the type of person who kept his phone on silent, and Cas hadn’t noticed.

**B:** Glad to know where I fit in your list of priorities, asshole.

**J:** Did Dean make lasagna?

**J:** His lasagna is the best.

**B:** I hope it’s worth the years of my life lost to worrying about my best friend in the entire world.

**J:** It is. Are you always such a drama queen?

**B:** Cas, verdict on the lasagna? If it’s not literally orgasmic, you’re not forgiven. If it is, fly me down there at once.

**J:** Drama queen

**B:** Cas?

**B:** Cas

**B:** Castiel Vestal Virgin Shurley, if you’re jerking off to that lasagna right now I’m going to permanently replace you with your better twin.

**J:** Gross

**B:** Why are you pretending to be dead again?

**B:** Though honestly, I’d rather you were dead than jerking it to lasagna

**J:** GROSS

**C:** Not dead or masturbating to pasta dishes

**C:** But if you’d like to disown me, I’m sure Jimmy would be happy to keep you

**J:** Pass

**B:** You two are the worst, why did ever I introduce you?

**B:** You try to do one nice thing…

Realizing he was just standing in the middle of the room on his phone with the lights on, which probably counted as weird, Cas got into bed. He got out of bed, because Jimmy’s room didn’t have a light switch right next to the pillow like his did, just the one at the door. Fortunately, though, it had enough ambient light from the large windows—and even a skylight—that he could make it back to the mattress without bumping into any unfamiliar furniture.

He still stayed up a while longer, though. He and Jimmy exchanged stories and impressions of their days while Balthazar provided his usual acerbic commentary. Chuck seemed to have coped with his absence perfectly fine; the apartment was in one piece, he hadn’t fallen off the wagon or forgotten to feed himself, and he’d even completed his draft as promised—with two different endings, which he wanted Cas to help him decide between.

**J:** This might be the most amazing thing that’s ever happened to me. Not only do I get to read the new Carver Edlund book before it even goes to his publisher, I get to actually help him finish it!

**J:** Shit

**J:** I mean, if that’s okay with you

**J:** I know he’s really asking you, not me, and I don’t want to take that away from you just because I’m excited

**J:** I can email it to you

**C:** It’s fine. I’ve done it a lot already, and you probably have a better perspective anyway since you haven’t read this one five hundred times already

**B:** Nerds

**B:** So Cas, what’s the fam like? Everything you were expecting?

**C:** Yes and no

**C:** They’re great, I’m really glad I’m getting a chance to meet them like this, but I definitely wasn’t prepared

**J:** I’m not sure there’s a way to prepare for all of them, haha

**B:** What was the biggest surprise?

**C:** How attractive Dean is

**J:** what

**C:** Some warning would have been appreciated

**J:** WHAT

**B:** Oh this is good

**B:** Jimmy, have you been hiding a hot stepbrother from us?

**J:** I haven’t been hiding anything! He’s just Dean

**C:** James

**C:** He is stunning

**C:** You must have noticed

**J:** I really haven’t thought about it

**C:** How do you manage that? Because I can’t stop thinking about it and it’s going to be a problem.

**B:** Ohoho

**B:** So not jerking off to Dean’s lasagna, but…

**J:** Jesus Balth

**J:** That’s my brother

**J:** That’s TWO of my brothers

**J:** I’m going to sleep

**J:** If I wake up to any more of this line of conversation, someone’s getting punched

**B:** Good to know Cas’s penchant for violence comes naturally

**B:** I suppose I’ll turn in as well

**B:** Good night, Jimmy

**B:** Sweet dreams, Cas ;)

Balthazar was absolutely going to get punched in the morning; Cas only regretted that he couldn’t be there to see and possibly help. He’d have his own struggles to deal with, though, like trying not to moon inappropriately over Jimmy’s gorgeous stepbrother while pretending to be Jimmy. Then again, maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. He’d been overwhelmed by quite a lot of emotional upheaval and an unfamiliar family dynamic. Dean probably wasn’t even as breathtakingly beautiful as Cas’s initial impression of him had been—attractive, yes, but Cas was only being dramatic about it because of everything else going on.

It would all feel more settled in the morning.


	4. Chapter 4

Haloed by the bright Californian summer morning sunshine, sitting at the kitchen table with a bowl of cereal and a printed spreadsheet on the table in front of him, Dean was not in fact any less beautiful than Cas had made him out to be. Especially when he looked up, saw Cas, and broke open another unfairly charming smile.

A brotherly smile, Cas reminded himself.

“Hey, Jimmy. You’re up early. Still running on camp time?”

“Yes.”

“Well, since you’re here you can help me with the shoot thinning this morning.”

Despite having no idea what that meant or how he was supposed to help with it, Cas quickly agreed, “Sure.” He assumed it was something Jimmy would know about and likely had to do regularly, so he was going to have to either try to figure it out on the fly or find a moment to sneak away and text Jimmy for an explanation before they started. Either way, he had to take care not to be suspicious about it.

Apparently it was too late for that care, because Dean gave him a strange look. “I’m joking, dude. You don’t have to, I know you hate that crap. I’m just gonna head out after breakfast, see if I can get it done before it gets too hot out.”

That was where assumptions landed him. Still, just because Jimmy hated the work, that didn’t mean he couldn’t try it. He wanted to know more about the family business, how it worked and what they did there. Jimmy and Jody might not have been Campbells by blood, but from everything he’d seen and been told, that didn’t make a difference to anyone. Campbell Cellars was just as much theirs as anyone else’s. Jimmy had said that Mary even considered changing the name, since there was no one left with the name Campbell—it had been her maiden name, before she married Dean and Sam’s late father—but they’d decided as a family to keep it.

“It’ll go faster with both of us, right? I don’t mind. Maybe it’s not as bad as I remember. And if it is, isn’t that more reason for me to help out instead of making you do it all yourself?”

“You don’t have to,” Dean said again. Cas was about to reluctantly give up on the idea, not wanting to make it into a big deal if Jimmy really did hate it that much, when he added, “But I wouldn’t say no to some help and company. I’d really appreciate that, actually. You wanna grab a bite first? I could make you some eggs or something. If you’re coming out with me, I don’t need to be in such a rush to get started.”

As tempting as more of Dean’s cooking was, Cas wasn’t usually one for breakfast and didn’t want to delay them for it. “Cereal’s fine, thanks. And you, uh, you might need to remind me the best way to do things.”

Dean grinned, his mouth falling just the slightest bit open like a hidden laugh. “Guess it has been a while. Yeah, I can do that, no problem. They keep you working hard at camp, is that why you’re looking for something to do?”

“Something like that.”

Cas poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate it while Dean asked questions about his time at camp. Cas did his best to answer without giving away anything about Jimmy, so it was mostly a lot of talking about the activities he hadn’t paid a lot of attention to at the time. But he had enough memory of it all to make it convincing and entertaining, and Dean seemed very interested in all of it—kept looking right into Cas’s eyes and laughing and engaging him for more stories. They got so into it that they lost track of time until Sam wandered downstairs and asked Dean what he was still doing there and why, if he was still lounging around inside, he hadn’t at least made waffles for them. The two of them sassed back and forth for a moment while Cas felt awkward, but the moment passed when Dean told Sam to make his own damn breakfast, he and Jimmy had real work to do.

Then Dean led him outside and into the vineyard. Cas hadn’t really gotten a good look at the land around the house the day before; it was beautiful. Rolling hills covered in vines, bright sky and sunlight, it was like nothing he’d ever seen. Struck, he stopped and stared for long enough that Dean noticed he was no longer behind him and turned, catching him staring.

“Good to be home?”

“It’s just… so much better than anywhere I’ve ever been.”

“Yeah? Better than those outdoor adventures you were telling me about from camp?” Despite his teasing tone, Dean looked the happiest Cas had seen him yet as he looked out across the same view Cas was surveying. The beatific expression on his face made Cas’s heart stutter in his chest. Jimmy had to be almost fatally incapable of recognizing beauty, if he didn’t appreciate it in his stepbrother or in his home.

“There’s no comparison. That area was nice, and I’m sure it’s great for the kids who live in the city and never get to go anywhere else,”—like Cas himself, who until that moment had been impressed with the natural beauty of Camp Chitaqua in the brief moments he’d paid attention to it—“but yes. This is better.”

Dean’s hair was as golden as the motes dancing in the air, his eyes as green as the leaves in the distance, his smile as bright as the sun.

Cas was in trouble.

It still didn’t get better as Dean showed him how to thin out the grapevine shoots, because he was right there at Cas’s side, showing him how to decide which tendrils they wanted to keep and how to pinch off the others without causing damage to the plant, joking about how out of practice ‘Jimmy’ was. Even after he’d moved away, trusting Cas to do it right, Cas’s heart kept beating too fast and he felt far warmer than the morning temperature justified.

Though he could understand why Jimmy hated doing it—the work was tedious, requiring focus but not offering any variety or challenge, and his fingers started to feel like they did at the end of long standardized tests—Cas found the task relaxing. He enjoyed the smells of the soil and plants, the change in texture between the leaves and canes and buds, the way he could look back at the frames he’d already done and see the evidence of his progress. 

Dean’s company also didn’t hurt.

Between what Jimmy had said about Dean and watching him interact with Sam, Cas had expected much more of an older brother stereotype: over-the-top teasing, know-it-all arrogance, other obnoxious flaws often played up in movie and television portrayals of sibling relationships. And maybe that was how he was most of the time; Jimmy had years of background on Dean’s behavior and Cas only a few hours, so he didn’t want to discount his twin’s experience. But since their breakfast conversation, Dean had just been personable and engaging.

It wasn’t just his patience and confidence in showing Cas what to do and believing him capable of doing it on his own. He kept up a steady stream of conversation even when they were working rows apart, asking more questions about camp, checking that Cas was doing okay, talking about the other things that needed to be done around the vineyard over the next weeks. Despite it sounding like an incredible amount of work, it really was just conversational. He wasn’t trying to guilt help out of his stepbrother—though if any of it happened while Cas was still around instead of Jimmy, he knew he would want to be involved. So he asked a lot of questions and Dean seemed even happier with how much interest he was showing.

Dean sang, too. Horrendously off-key, songs Cas either didn’t know or couldn’t recognize, but he was clearly having a fantastic time and his good mood was contagious. He even tried to get Cas to sing along, but that absolutely was not going to happen. Fortunately, he’d learned at camp that Jimmy was just as unlikely to go along with it as he was, so there was no problem there. Dean’s cajoling remained good-natured, even if he did start singing directly at Cas and making him feel even more incredibly self-conscious about his reactions.

As the morning wore on, the sun got hotter and higher—which was, of course, only to be expected. That was how days and suns worked, and had been part of Dean’s expressed reasoning for starting early. Cas had been prepared for that. He was not prepared for Dean to respond to the heat by stripping off his long-sleeved flannel shirt even though that, too, could probably have been expected. It was far too warm of an outfit to last in the climate, but Cas hadn’t really thought about it. If he had, he might’ve just assumed that Dean was more accustomed to the California weather than he was, anyway. After all, he’d lived there his entire life. Jimmy had, too, and he’d been more tolerant of the sun at camp than Cas was.

Whether or not Dean’s tolerance was higher than Cas’s—which it probably was—it apparently had its limit and that limit had been reached. Cas’s tolerance had limits, as well, and there was only so much shirtless, freckled muscle he could take without being caught staring at inappropriate times. He was pretty sure Dean did catch him looking, which was so mortifying that he mumbled something—he honestly wasn’t even sure what it was—and hurried off to the opposite end of the row to start working down there instead.

Silence followed him, which was the most obvious indication of Dean’s discomfort he could imagine, given how talkative and excited he’d been the rest of the morning. At least the rote nature of the shoot thinning meant he could use the time to try and figure out how to salvage that moment of creepiness. He didn’t even want to think about how he would explain it to Jimmy if he couldn’t.

He’d barely started brooding that over when Dean started singing again, sounding just as cheerful and carefree as before. Maybe he hadn’t entirely ruined everything, and he was just too sensitive to any problems because of his paranoia over not really being Jimmy. Dean only made it through one song—as far as Cas could tell, not really being able to distinguish one song from another anyway—and then he came over to where Cas had retreated, shirt slung over his shoulder and dirt indistinguishable from freckles across his chest.

“We should head inside and cool off. Get a drink. I’ll come back out later this evening when it cools down, we’re almost done. You helping out made this go so much quicker, so thanks! I would’ve had to finish up tomorrow otherwise. And it would be such a shame to ruin our morning plans.”

He smiled that impossibly beautiful smile at Cas, who took much longer than he should have in response to remember that the day after was his birthday. There were family plans for his—for Jimmy’s—birthday. It wasn’t anything special between him and Dean, no matter how much that smile made him feel like it should have been.

When they got back inside the house, the kitchen was empty but a crumb-covered plate on the table suggested Sam had in fact fed himself. Dean grumbled as he cleared it away to the sink, then grabbed a couple of glasses from the cabinet above it. Good to know where those were. He filled the cups from a pitcher in the fridge, not the tap, handed one to Cas, and downed his own glass without taking a breath.

“You can grab the first shower,” Dean offered as Cas tried to shake his eyes loose from the bob of Dean’s throat.

“That’s okay. I think you need it more,” Cas said, because it was a better answer than ‘I haven’t figured out where the bathroom is and as such haven’t brushed my teeth since yesterday morning’ and also because it gave him a perfectly respectable reason to gesture at Dean’s dirt-speckled abs.

Looking down at himself, Dean laughed and tried to wipe at the mess with his discarded flannel. All that accomplished was smearing the soil and sweat around. That wasn’t quite true. It also succeeded in making Cas wish desperately to be anywhere else, or for Dean to be anywhere else, before the very embarrassing situation happening in his pants—in Jimmy’s pants, because he was absolutely the worst brother—made itself obvious.

“All right, all right. You might have a point. Thanks, Jimmy. I promise not to use all the hot water.”

Cas followed him out of the kitchen, planning to go to Jimmy’s room and hopefully see where Dean went to shower on the way. If not, he could still go on to his room without it looking suspicious. At the top of the stairs, Dean turned the opposite way down the hall and opened the first door; through it, Cas saw a white gleam that suggested bathroom ceramics. Perfect.

“Jesus, Dean, put a shirt on.”

Startled, Cas turned and saw Sam standing in the doorway of what must have been his room, arms crossed and a petulant grimace on his face. But his eyes shifted over to Cas and his frown twisted into something more confused. Cas wasn’t sure what Sam had seen or what he thought of it, but it was enough to make him nervous as he forced out a quick wave and then shut himself inside the safety of Jimmy’s room.

When Dean knocked on the door to let Cas know the shower was free, Cas hurried out, only to find Dean wrapped in a towel on the other side of the door. He was being punished for leaving his father, clearly.

Cas showered, brushed his teeth with his own toothbrush that he’d brought from camp, and changed into clean clothes, then went back downstairs to join the Winchesters for a late lunch. The tasting room had a scheduled half-hour closure, so even Mary was there. Jody, still at work, wasn’t.

It was a casual thing, not like the dinner they’d made the day before. Just a spread of bagels, cheeses, vegetables, and deli meats for them to put together as they desired. It was almost like something he and Chuck might’ve shared, sitting on the couch in front of the television, except that there was no American cheese or bologna and the Winchesters were actually taking the time to layer toppings onto the bagels instead of just shoving whole slices of roast beef into their mouths. Cas, in the interest of being respectful and not outing himself, did the same.

Over food, they talked about plans for the birthday celebration tomorrow. Cas and Jimmy had had the foresight to discuss those, so Cas knew that Jimmy was expecting breakfast and presents in bed then a trip to the zoo, and Jimmy knew that Cas was expecting Chuck to be in phone meetings most of the day, then they would go out for dinner at Cas’s favorite diner. Cas had never actually been to the zoo at home. It hadn’t been a priority when he was younger—or really even possible, between the money and organization needed to make it happen—and by the time that changed with Chuck’s moderate success and sobriety, Cas had been old enough to worry about the ethics of it all. He’d heard plenty of horror stories about terrible places with abused and neglected animals, but Jimmy promised the one they would take Cas to wasn’t one of those.

“It’s really a wildlife rehab and sanctuary, not a zoo, everyone just calls it that. It’s a good place, I promise. I think you’ll really like it.”

Whether or not Cas liked it, it was clear Sam did. As soon as the zoo came up in conversation, he started passionately telling them about which animals had been released or relocated since they were last there, as well as what sorts of new injuries and orphans had been taken in and what was being done to help them.

“You know, the youth internship applications open in November.” Dean said when Sam finally paused to take a breath and a bite of his bagel. “You should look into that.”

All of a sudden, Sam closed off like he was shy. Embarrassed, maybe. “I dunno, they probably get a bunch of kids from actual farms who know a lot more than I do. And it might conflict with mock trial.”

“Yeah, but it also might not. And experience is great and all, but the whole point of the program is so you can learn stuff. They’ve already got a bunch of lion doctors or whatever, they won’t be expecting you to know it all. Though I know that’s hard for you, being such a know-it-all all the time.”

Sam protested that last addition with all the self-righteousness of a wronged teenager, but Cas didn’t miss the small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. He saw Dean’s back settle a little straighter at having cheered up his brother. He also couldn’t help noticing the way Mary looked at both of them, proud and loving. He would’ve expected to feel jealous and excluded, because he didn’t belong to this happy family and he’d already experienced that sting of resentment that Jimmy got to have them and he didn’t.

But the warmth that suffused his chest wasn’t anything like that. He was glad they had each other, and glad that Jimmy had them, and hopeful that maybe there’d be a place for him even after they knew the truth. Whatever had happened to make Chuck and Jody separate their twins, he knew they were both good and loving parents. He didn’t think either of them would try to force him and Jimmy apart again.

After lunch, he went back up to Jimmy’s room to ’nap’ and shared his conclusion. Jimmy agreed, but only to a point.

**J:** But I’m not ready to go home yet. Aren’t you having fun?

**C:** I’m not enjoying the subterfuge

**C:** I don’t think I’m very good at it

**C:** I’m always worried I’m going to say or do something, and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but your family pays a lot more attention to everything than my dad

**C:** Your brothers keep looking at me and I can’t tell if it’s normal or they know something is going on

**B:** Are you throwing yourself at Dean like a thirsty teen drama character because that might be a giveaway

**J:** You’re dead to me

**B:** Lighten up

**B:** You really do have the easy job here

**B:** Chuck does his best but we all know there’s only about a 50/50 chance that he would notice if Cas switched places with a 6ft 30yo named Bubba

**C:** I am not throwing myself at anyone

**J:** I appreciate your restraint

**C:** Even though he has made me look at his naked, glistening chest two separate times just this morning

**J:** Jesus

**B:** Maybe you’re not the thirsty heroine of this story

**J:** JESUS

**J:** My stepbrother does not want to have sex with me

**J:** I think I would have noticed

**B:** No, but he might want to have sex with Cas

**C:** I don’t think he wants to have sex with me

**J:** Thank you

**C:** But I would find it very hard to object if he did

**B:** lol hard

**J:** Cas, don’t make me disown you so soon after we’ve found each other. 

**B:** All you have to do is tell him you’re not Jimmy and you can bone without guilt

**J:** THERE WOULD DEFINITELY BE GUILT

**C:** I am not boning anyone

**C:** But

**J:** No, no buts

**B:** Butttttts

**B:** (peach emoji)

**C:** Jimmy

**C:** James

**C:** We’re identical twins

**C:** How can you feel nothing for the most beautiful man I have ever seen in my life

**J:** BECAUSE HE’S MY BROTHER

**J:** Just be chill

**B:** Bad move, Jimbo

**B:** Cas has literally no chill

**C:** I can have chill

**C:** But

**B:** YES MORE BUTTS

**C:** It’s not just attraction

**C:** I like him

**C:** A lot

**C:** Life-ruining crush a lot

**B:** Oh

**B:** Well, that’s dramatic and kind of sweet

**J:** …

**J:** Just don’t do anything yet, okay?

**J:** We can talk about it when we’re both home

**J:** Let’s not make this more complicated and weird

**C:** Of course

**C:** I’m not trying to

**J:** I know

**J:** And I guess, objectively, Dean is a pretty great guy

**J:** I’m just not prepared to deal with this

**C:** I know

**C:** Honestly I’m not either

**B:** Well me and my popcorn are, and you two are letting us down

**C:** Fuck off, Balthazar

**J:** Fuck off, Balth

**B:** Freaky

When the evening had cooled off some, Cas and Dean went back out to finish thinning the grapevines. Dean had somehow convinced Sam to join them—or possibly blackmailed him into it, judging by the complaints Cas caught as they headed outside—so it was barely an hour before Dean declared their work complete. Sam, still grumbling, immediately retreated to the house, but Dean looked around thoughtfully. It both relieved and devastated Cas that Dean had kept his shirt on.

“I’m gonna go check the barrels in storage, make sure we don’t have any cracks or pests that need dealing with. You wanna come?”

It sounded like something Jimmy would not have wanted to do, but Cas did. “Sure.”

Dean led him over to what Cas would’ve called a cellar, except that it was its own building almost halfway across the property from the house. It was also at least partially above ground, but completely windowless; the only light inside came from the open doorway, then from a line of bulbs hanging down from the ceiling that looked industrial but also dim and yellowed. He wasn’t sure if that was an aesthetic choice or a necessary part of the process, and he also wasn’t sure if he could get away with asking or if that would be so obvious that Jimmy would’ve known the answer the past for six years.

In the end, he didn’t have to ask. Dean saw him looking and breathed out an almost-laugh. “I know, very dramatic. But our dad picked them out, so I don’t think Mom is ever getting rid of them.”

“I like it. It feels…” He looked around the space, how the warm light made the shadows beneath the barrels soft instead of stark and looming, how the slight swirls of dust in the air looked like dappled sunlight inside a forest canopy. “Idyllic.”

“Yeah. I think this might be my favorite place in the entire world, you know? I just feel so at home. Which is dumb, I know, this whole place is my home, but—”

“It’s not dumb.” That came out too loud for the peaceful space, for how close they were standing, but it was better than Dean insulting himself. “I know exactly what you mean. It’s not just about where you live. Some places have something about them that just speaks to you. Makes you feel more like yourself than you even knew you could be.”

The glow of the lights turned Dean’s eyes gold. Cas didn’t know how long he spent staring into them, but it was definitely too long. His face was definitely closer to Dean’s than it had been, closer than it had any reason to be. Close enough to kiss him.

Dean licked his lips and cleared his throat.

“Yeah. Right. We, uh. Let’s just.” With an abruptness that screamed discomfort, Dean turned away and almost walked into a door off to the side before he opened it.

Cas stayed just outside the doorway, not trusting himself in the smaller room with Dean. Dean probably didn’t want him in there, either, given how the cool confidence Cas had come to expect from him was nowhere to be seen. He stumbled into two towers of barrels, though he at least managed to keep them upright with a lot of cursing that had too much muttering for Cas to actually understand the words. He wasn’t working with his usual thoroughness, either, skipping over a good half of the room in his haste to be done and away from Cas. When he’d finished that, he moved very carefully around where Cas was standing. He didn’t say anything or even look at Cas, just waited for Cas to follow him outside then locked the door and started equally silently back toward the house.

If Cas had ever felt more like an asshole in his life, he didn’t remember it. Dean had barely had a second to breathe after opening up to what he thought was his stepbrother about feeling comfortable in a special place, then Cas went and ruined it.

Dean pointedly kept his back to Cas in the kitchen, taking longer than he needed to pick a drinking glass, letting Cas cross all the way across the room and start up the stairs before closing the cabinet. Cas would’ve kept going, but he heard Sam ask, “What the hell was that?” and couldn’t help himself. He paused partway up the steps, out of sight but not out of earshot.

“Fuck, Sammy. I messed up. I think I really, really messed up this time.”

“Dude. What happened?”

He heard Dean sigh and set down the glass without filling it. “Has Jimmy seemed… I dunno. Different to you?”

“Different how?”

“I can’t explain it exactly. It’s just—since he got back, there’s something new there. Something—fuck. Sammy, swear to me right now this never leaves this room, okay?”

“Dean, what—”

“I’m serious. I just, I need to get over it and everything will get back to normal, but you can’t tell Mom or Jody.”

“Okay.” Footsteps; Cas wasn’t sure who moved, but the next moment he heard cloth sliding and moving in what he imagined was some kind of reassurance. “You’re freaking me out a little here, Dean. I promise. What is it?”

“I’ve never wanted to kiss him before. That’s sick, right? He’s my brother. But the last couple days—I almost did, just now. I think he’s really upset. And why shouldn’t he be?”

“Stepbrother,” Sam said, his tone thoughtful.

“You know that’s not—”

“And it’s not just you. I’ve seen him watching you a few times, and it’s… It’s weird. Different, like you say, since he got back. Maybe he’s not upset?”

“No. No, he is, and whatever you thought you saw, just forget it. I’ve known him since he was ten, this is—I don’t know what it is, but it’s not right. It’s creepy as fuck, is what it is. It can’t happen.”

Cas fled upstairs, feeling sick and done with the whole charade. It wasn’t just about him suffering for his crush on Dean anymore; he was hurting Dean with it, making Dean feel like he’d done something wrong when Cas was the one lying and making it all wrong. It had to end.

**J:** Just one more day, Cas

**J:** Let me have one birthday with Dad, please

**J:** Don’t you want one with Mom and everyone?

**C:** Not if the price is making Dean hate himself!

**J:** He’s already upset. What difference does one day make?

**J:** 24 more hours and you can explain everything to him

**J:** Please

**C:** Fine

**C:** One more day and that’s it

**J:** Thank you!!

**B:** And then you bone?

**J left the chat**


	5. Chapter 5

Waking up the next morning, Cas still felt like crap. The only positive was that he knew it would be resolved within twenty-four hours. One more day; that was all he’d promised Jimmy. There was bound to be fallout, and maybe it was going to end up being even more painful than what he was going through with Dean. If Jody and Dean and Sam and Mary hated him, well, it would be awful and he would have regrets for the rest of his life. But at least he would know he’d done his best and been honest about everything.

He wasn’t awake for long before someone knocked quietly.

“You up?” Jody asked through the door.

“Yeah.” He sat up as she came in and smiled at him.

“Good morning, baby. Happy birthday.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“You gonna be ready for breakfast in a couple minutes, or want us to wait a bit longer?”

“Breakfast sounds great.”

She went over to the bed and hugged him around the shoulders, pressing a kiss to the top of his head. “You got it. Brace yourself for the invasion.”

What Cas braced for was the entire family crowding into Jimmy’s room as promised. What he got instead was Dean, alone except for a plate piled high with the fluffiest pancakes Cas had seen in his entire life.

“Sammy’s having a last-minute crisis with his present, but we didn’t want these getting cold,” Dean explained. The line of his mouth was closer to a smile than a frown, but it had a tentative, shy quality to it, like he wasn’t sure of his welcome. Cas knew that feeling all too well, and hated being the reason Dean had to feel it.

He’d been such an idiot to agree to this plan in the first place, and even more of an idiot with each hour he hadn’t called a halt to it. By the end of the day, he would claim his title as the biggest dumbass alive and Jimmy would owe him so many favors. Maybe he could use some of them to find a way to convince Dean to ever talk to him again.

For the time being, all he could do was his best to put Dean at ease.

He smiled, feeling shy about it himself, and said, “Thank you. I think a stack of pancakes that large may be able to keep themselves warm for years without any outside intervention, but I still appreciate the thoughtfulness. Should I be worried about Sam?”

“Nah. It’s not anything big, he’s just being Sam about it.”

Cas had asked about Sam, not Sam’s present, but that answer probably meant that the boy himself was just fine. It also left a lull in the conversation that threatened to let things get awkward again, so Cas grasped for something to fill it before that could happen.

“Anything you’re looking forward to at the zoo?”

It was a dumb, childish question that he regretted immediately, but it got the job done: Dean looked slightly less ready to throw the plate into his lap and flee at any moment.

“That’s more a you and Sammy thing. Like, I don’t hate it there or anything,” Dean added quickly, looking to reassure him. Cas hadn’t gotten around to considering being worried on that count, too busy worrying about everything else, but it was nice of Dean to try. “It’s a fun trip, I like going. There’s just not anything specific I wanna see.”

Cas was saved from having to come up with a good response to that or asking another, stupider question by the rest of the family making their noisy way up the stairs. It was definitely all three of their voices, and even if he couldn’t understand what any of them were saying, they all sounded cheerful. Sam’s gift crisis had apparently been averted.

“Really, Dean? The whole point of you bringing them up was so Jimmy could eat them, not so you could hold them hostage.” The first one in the room, Mary shook her head at her son and rescued the plate of pancakes from his hands as he protested ineffectively. “Happy birthday, Jimmy. Here, I hope they’re not too cold.”

“If they are, I’ll eat them and Dean can make you more.”

Dean rolled his eyes. “Your generosity knows no bounds, Sammy. Don’t act like you’re blameless here, you’re the one who was holding everything up in the first place!”

“I’m the one who told you not to keep him waiting for breakfast! You even came up here on time, so anything after that is even more totally not my fault.”

Wedging her way through the door, Jody handed off the package she was carrying to Mary, then used both hands to lightly cuff Dean and Sam on the backs of their heads at the same time. To Cas, she said, “I hope you wanted endless bickering for your birthday, because like it or not that’s what you’re getting.”

He grinned up at her. “I expected nothing less.”

“Smart kid. You wanna scarf down enough flapjacks for three linebackers while we all stare awkwardly at you, or you wanna do the present thing now and then we’ll clear out so that you and we can all pretend you have dignity?”

“Uh. Presents?”

“Smart kid,” she repeated.

The plate was set aside to safety on the desk before Jody claimed motherly privilege to be the first gift-giver.

“Breakfast was my gift!”

“Yeah, and you didn’t actually give it to him, so. Snooze you loose.”

The present she gave him was a recognizable size and shape, and the feel of it even through the paper confirmed his suspicions. He was prepared, as he carefully untaped the wrapping—Jimmy probably wasn’t the type to just tear in—for it to be one of his dad’s books. Jimmy was a fan, and he’d told Cas he didn’t have _The Angel Meets Death_. It wasn’t one of Cas’s favorites, but he was still excited for Jimmy, especially since Jimmy was getting to read the newest book at that very moment.

Then Jody said, “Look inside.”

Cas did.

He couldn’t breathe.

_Jimmy,_

_Happy Birthday! 17 is a great year._

_All the best,_

_Carver Edlund_

That was his father’s handwriting, he would’ve recognized it anywhere. His father had signed the book personally for Jimmy’s birthday.

“Is this funny to you?” he asked without entirely meaning to, his voice hoarse.

“What?”

Though he hadn’t meant to start saying it, he found it impossible to stop once he had. There were too many feelings hitting him all at once and the easiest one to cling to was anger. “Did you think it was fun, having this little secret as part of the present? That you know who really signed this book but never planned to tell? Have you and Dad been talking to each other this whole time?”

There were sounds around the room, the Winchesters making surprised noises or asking questions or shushing each other, but he didn’t really hear them. He didn’t look at them. He stared at Jody, and she stared back like she was seeing a ghost. Somehow it hurt even more than when he first found out about Jimmy, hurt more than all his loneliness and jealousy at the family he’d been excluded from, when she looked him in the eye and still tried to deny it. Tried to deny him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, but the tremor of her voice proved her a liar.

“Chuck.”

She flinched.

“Shurley.”

Jody sagged, all the fight going out of her at once, but just as quickly she steeled her resolve and sat at the foot of the bed. “Okay. Okay. We’ve got a lot to talk about here, and maybe now isn’t the best time for it.”

It was the best time he had available to him, probably the only time, so he just kept looking expectantly at her, waiting for answers.

“No, your dad and I haven’t been in contact since we split. He didn’t know this book was for you, specifically. It was just a normal request that went through his publicist, I used Mary’s name.”

He felt a little better knowing Jody and Chuck hadn’t been talking to each other while keeping him and Jimmy apart. Not much, but it helped a little to know the betrayal hadn’t been constant like that. Except thinking about that reminded him of the other, bigger, still constant betrayal: he and Jimmy hadn’t just been denied a parent each. They’d been denied each other. And even as Jody was being confronted with one lie, she wasn’t owning up to another.

She wasn’t acknowledging Cas’s existence at all.

“Were you ever going to tell him about me?”

“Oh, baby. He knows, but—”

“No, not Dad. Were you ever going to tell Jimmy about me?”

“Oh my god.” Jody’s hands flew to her mouth and she stared at him for a very long time, eyes wide. Finally, like a prayer, she whispered, “Castiel?”

His voice cracked as he said, “Hi, Mom.”

“Castiel—god.” Jody’s eyes welled up and she took Cas’s face between her palms. “My little Castiel. I thought I’d never see you again. Look at you. I’ve missed you every single day of your life.”

“Then why?”

“We were so young, sweetheart. So unbelievably young and stupid and selfish. We thought it would be easier on all of us to just make a clean break, down the middle. Chuck and I wouldn’t have to handle our breakup like adults, you and Jimmy wouldn’t have to deal with bouncing back and forth between us. We thought it wouldn’t hurt you since you’d never know, and it would save us from heartache. But it didn’t. There’s no way in hell that facing my failures with your dad could ever have hurt me the way giving you up did.”

“It’s been seventeen years.” He was crying, too, but he couldn’t look away from her even to wipe away his tears. “Why didn’t you ever try? You could’ve talked to Dad, talked to me. I could’ve talked to Jimmy.”

“I was scared. And ashamed. By the time I realized it was never going to get better and I was always going to have this piece of my heart ripped out, I thought it was too late to fix it. All I could do was do the best I could for your brother and hope that Chuck was doing the same for you.” Jody brushed the tears from his cheeks with her thumbs, shaky but tender. “We really fucked this up, didn’t we.”

Instead of giving the obvious answer, Cas let himself fall into the comfort of his mother’s arms and they just clung to each other for what felt like both a very long time and not nearly long enough. Eventually they had to separate, and Jody drew back with another strong sniff and a watery smile.

“I need to call your dad.”

“I can—”

“No, baby, this is on me. Chuck and I are about sixteen years overdue for a conversation, anyway. Do you want to stay up here or go down for breakfast with everyone else?”

He hadn’t noticed the Winchesters leaving, though of course it made sense they’d let him and Jody have their moment in private. They’d taken the presents and pancakes with them, but Cas wasn’t really interested in either anymore. The thought of facing all of them just then was even less appealing, so after she got Chuck’s phone number from him, Jody left Cas alone in Jimmy’s room to process the morning’s events.

The first thing he did was text a warning to Jimmy, who didn’t respond. He and Chuck were probably still asleep, and about to get a very unexpected awakening. Next, he got dressed; he didn’t want to handle anything else significant in Jimmy’s pale blue flannel pajamas. He wanted to go wash his face, but when he opened the bedroom door he found Dean standing just outside it, looking awkward. On seeing Cas, his expression couldn’t seem to decide what to settle on: confusion, hurt, anger, sadness all made an appearance.

Cas wasn’t sure he had to fortitude to handle whatever was going to come next, but for Dean he wanted to try.

“Hello, Dean.”

“Hey, uh…” Dean trailed off, biting his lip.

“Cas.”

“Cas. Hey, Cas. So you’re really not Jimmy.”

“No.”

“Since camp?”

“Yeah.”

“Where’s he?”

“With our dad. In Portland.”

“The guy who writes those super nerdy books he loves.”

“Yeah.”

“Man, this is so weird. You look just like him—I mean, obviously, right? But you’re not really like him at all. I can’t believe we didn’t notice.”

“Didn’t you, though?”

The question Dean asked with his gaze was the most eye contact they’d made since almost kissing. Cas was very sure he didn’t succeed in hiding the warmth he felt spreading to his face, but he pushed on regardless.

“It seems like you and Sam both thought I was acting weird. But ‘secret twin swap’ isn’t likely to come up as a possible explanation, when you didn’t even know I existed.”

“Yeah.” Dean winced and scratched at the back of his neck. “I’ve never seen Mom this mad at Jody.”

Guilt ripped through him. In wanting to experience Jimmy’s family life for himself, he’d destroyed it. “I’m sorry.”

“Dude, no!” Dean’s hand twitched toward Cas, like he wanted to reach out but then thought better of it, and dropped awkwardly to his side instead. “They’ll be okay. And even if they weren’t, it’s so not your fault. Jody and your dad, they made a seriously stupid decision and even if they thought that had good reasons, that’s on them. So is letting it go on for this long without trying to fix it or telling anyone. That’s what Mom’s really upset about, and she doesn’t blame you at all. None of us do. This thing you and Jimmy did was—crazy, yeah, but also a pretty awesome idea. I’m sure I would’ve done something a whole lot dumber in your place.”

“We never wanted to hurt anyone,” Cas said, then shook his head and looked down at the floor, at his bare feet halfway between the carpet of Jimmy’s room and the pale wood of the hallway floor. The time had come for honesty, and that meant with himself, too.

“We didn’t do it for the sake of hurting anyone,” he tried again, and that was better. “We just wanted a chance to get to know our parents before it all blew up. But I always knew it was going to get messy and probably painful, I was just so mad I didn’t care.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

That was not the recrimination Cas had expected for his confession.

“They hurt you, so what if you hurt them back? Makes sense to me.”

“But they’re not the only ones who got hurt. I heard… That is, I listened to you and Sam talking last night.”

“Fuck.” Dean ran a hand over his face, looking sheepish. “I’m so, so sorry for getting weird on you like that. Just because you’re not Jimmy doesn’t make it okay.”

“It not only makes it okay, it makes it my fault, not yours.” Dean frowned, mouth popping open to argue, but Cas held up a hand to stop him. “It may help you to understand that I thought I was the one ‘getting weird on you.’ I’ve been trying desperately not to show my completely inappropriate feelings for you, because I’m supposed to be Jimmy and Jimmy sees you as a brother. I don’t. Jimmy definitely does not want to kiss you, but I do. I almost did, last night.”

“So…” Dean’s smile still had a trace of shyness to it, but some of the old charm was sneaking back in, too, making him look sweet and sly at the same time. It was an unfairly good look. “You are into me?”

“Yes. Jimmy’s been yelling at me about it more or less since I got here.”

“It’s weird,” Dean admitted, “with you and Jimmy and how you look like Jimmy. That might take a bit of adjustment and wrapping my brain around, not gonna lie. But you’re not Jimmy. I’m never been—I mean, I guess I better check when he gets dragged back here, but I’m pretty sure I’m still not attracted to Jimmy.”

“That’s good, because while I have the texts to prove that Jimmy is very much not attracted to you, I would hate to have to use them.”

Dean laughed, free and easy and delightful. “You’ve really been talking to him about me like that?”

“My friend Balthazar instigated most of it. If you ever meet him, you’ll understand.”

“I’d like to meet him.” Looking uncertain again, Dean took half a step closer and reached out for Cas’s hand. Breathless, Cas let him take it. “I’d like to get to know you as you, instead of you as Jimmy. I wanna know about your friends and the stuff that makes you happy and what your life’s been like with your famous author dad up in Portland.”

Cas was lost in Dean’s eyes again, swaying forward dangerously, when a pointedly clearing throat broke the moment.

He dropped Dean’s hand, feeling red hot all over, and turned to see Jody watching them with a raised eyebrow and her phone held out to Cas.

“Hey, sweetie. Your dad wants to talk to you,” she said. “And I think I want to talk to Dean, hm?”

The warmth of his conversation with Dean shredded away as he felt, once more, like he’d destroyed the fabric of this beautiful happy family by inserting himself into it unwanted. “He didn’t do anything wrong. It’s all—”

“It’s okay, Cas,” Dean said, at the same time as Jody raised her free hand in placation and said, “No one’s in trouble.”

Then, with another pointed look at Cas, she added, “Well, no one’s in very much trouble, since their parents understand that they had a lot of strong and valid emotions driving their completely reckless and dangerous decisions, and it’s entirely their parents’ faults to begin with. But whatever this is,”—she waved her hand between him and Dean—“if it’s anything, no one’s mad. Just concerned and going to make everyone involved talk about it a truly uncomfortable amount. Okay?”

“Okay.”

He reached for the phone, but before he could take it, Jody said, “Hey, Cas?”

“Yeah?”

“I love you, baby. Always remember that.” She gave him the phone and a kiss on the forehead.

Vision blurry through suddenly wet eyes, he watched her sling an arm around Dean’s shoulders and lead him off downstairs. It took a few shaky breaths before he could muster up the ability to say, “Hi, Dad.”

“Cas!” His dad sounded more frantic than Cas had ever heard, and given Chuck’s low bar for frenzy, that was saying a lot. “Cas, I’m so sorry for everything. I screwed up so bad.”

“Dad, it’s okay. I mean. I was mad. I’ll undoubtedly be mad again later. But right now, I’m just very happy to have everything out in the open and to be talking to you. I missed you.”

With a revealingly wet sniff, his dad asked, “Even though you were with a dream family instead of your disaster of a father?”

“You’re my dream disaster and I wouldn’t trade you for anything or anyone,” Cas said, “but this does require a lot of discussion that’s not going to just be about your insecurities.”

“I know.” Chuck took a deep breath. “I know. And I’m so proud of how maturely you’re handling all this. Jimmy and I—” His voice wavered as he clearly teared up again. “Your brother and I headed to the airport right now, we’ll be there in just a few hours. And I’m going to hug you and cry all over you and then we can figure out what we’re doing. You know I can write from anywhere, if you want to move—”

“I don’t know. It’s a lot to think about, but thank you for being willing to. All I know right now is that I don’t want to lose you or Jimmy or anyone here.”

“Of course, kid, of course. Jody—your mom and I already talked about that, and, I mean, of course it’s entirely up to you and Jimmy how much you want us involved in your lives. But from now on we’re both here for both of you, and we’re never going to let our own shit get in the way of that again. I promise.”

“Okay. I love you, Dad.”

“I love you too, Cas. And hey, happy birthday.”

“Thanks.”

Cas took his time walking downstairs to return the phone to Jody and face the rest of the family waiting for him. Not because he was dreading it, not anymore, but to give himself time to think about his dad’s offer. Moving to California would mean being able to see Jimmy and his mom all the time, probably every day if they wanted to—and for the first few months at least, he knew they would want to. It would mean getting to know Mary and Sam better, and seeing if he and Dean really did like each other when they both knew exactly who they were. It would mean getting to spend more time learning how the vineyards and winery worked, enjoying the scenery and the fresh air.

And probably seeing Dean shirtless more, which was definitely a point in favor of moving.

But it would also mean leaving Balthazar behind, and everyone else he knew at school. Starting as a senior at a new school in a new place. A lot more upheaval in his life when he already had so many things to adjust to.

He reached the bottom of the stairs and saw everyone waiting around the table, smiling warmly at him, and his worries eased. Like he’d told his dad, they didn’t have to decide right away. They could talk it over with everyone, spend some time together as a full—slightly overfull, maybe—family and see how that worked out. He could see if Dean would sneak out into the fields with him at night to look up at the stars and finally give in to kissing each other.

No matter what they decided, how things worked out, he knew he’d have them all in his life for good now. He still had his dad, but he also had a mom, and a brother, and a stepmom, and—he met Dean’s eyes and Dean winked, beckoning him to a fresh plate of pancakes—and his stepmom’s kids, who weren’t exactly his stepbrothers because he was pretty sure one of them was his boyfriend. It was a little weird and messy, but that seemed to be how his life went, and it had done okay by him so far.


End file.
